Welcome to my blog! It is great to have you here.

My name is Tarz. I am a 38-year-old solo mother of one – a beautiful daughter who has just turned 11. I also have a dog and two cats. We all live together in an apartment in Australia.

Six months ago, on December 31st, 2023, I decided that 2024 was the year I was going to achieve inner peace and happiness. I have been working hard with a psychologist to learn how to communicate with my inner child and bring out my inner leader. In recent months I have also turned to God to help love me into the best version of myself. Before this, I had suffered for years from trauma-based depression and anxiety and was walking a very dangerous path of giving up on life.

I have put off creating this blog for many years. I created the name Lost In The World Of Mum on Instagram back in 2020, but I never felt ready to put my story out there. I believe this was because if I had put these stories out there four years ago, they would have been bitter and unforgiving. Although some of the stories you will encounter throughout this blog will be horrific for some, I am simply putting them out there to help myself heal from them. They are not written with any intent to cause harm. They are not intended to point fingers at anyone. I have forgiven every single person that has played a role in these stories. I never dealt with my own emotions behind the events that took place – and that is what this blog is about. It’s about me, my thoughts, my feelings, my version of events. It is my journey to heal myself.

My current goal is to use Lost In The World Of Mum to tell my own story; however, in the future, I would like to create a community for others to share their stories as well. I hope my stories will help others start their own journey of healing or put it into their minds so they know it can be done. Sometimes, all we need is something to trigger that little voice that says, “I deserve that peaceful life!” You do deserve it!

For most of my life, I thought that the constant void I felt could be filled with material objects or men. It cannot. Nothing will fill that void because it is self-love, self-respect, self-forgiveness, self-care, and everything else that YOU need from YOURSELF! You won’t get it anywhere else, and you will suffer until you wake up and realise. It is a brutal hit in the face when you do, trust me. When I first had the thought, “I deserve that peaceful life,” it was out of jealousy of others. Soon, it became a question of, “Well, why can’t I have that life?” and then it became, “I want that! How do I achieve it?”

I started looking at my life and all the areas that needed work. There were a lot of areas! I am not going to lie; at first, it was daunting, and I thought to myself, “How much do you really want this? Is it even achievable?” Then I looked at my daughter, who also suffers from poor mental health, and I knew I needed to do it for her. If I could not do it for myself, I need to do it for her! It was the realisation that if things did not change, I was going to kill myself. I do not mean by suicide; I had literally given up on my will to live. I was battling with several health issues, dealing with doctors who just did not care, dealing with poor mental health, dealing with decades of trauma, dealing with being a sole parent – just everything was piled and piled and piled – and I was alone. I had my daughter, but she is just a child. It is not her responsibility to deal with adult life.

My daughter was still at school last year when I hit rock bottom. I had given up work due to being sick. I was home all the time. The only time I left the house was the school run or to go shopping, which I did reluctantly. I avoided people at every opportunity I got. I would drop my daughter to school and then come home and sleep. If I was not asleep, I was on the couch watching Netflix. I was depressed in a bad way, and no one knew it. I held it in and pretended to smile; that’s the way I was taught. Bad things happen, and you just get on with life. How do you get on with life when you have no will to live?

I found myself being very bitter and resentful towards everything and everyone. “I hate people!” was my favourite line to say – most of the time, they had done nothing; I just could not stand myself. The only emotions I remember feeling were anger, grief, despair, sadness, and a whole lot of guilt. It mainly was mum guilt which, if you’ve ever felt it, you know how much it sucks! It really, really gets inside your head! I felt like a massive disappointment, and I knew I was failing as a mother.

My daughter was attending a Catholic school, and as she was Baptised, she had to go through her Eucharist – she hadn’t done it the year before because she was too nervous to do it. We had to attend a night with the priest – I know it has a name, but I’m not Catholic, so I am unsure what the names are. On the night, the priest spoke about forgiveness and letting go of the burdens we hold against people who do us wrong. He kept looking at me, which kind of annoyed me. He asked us if we had any questions, but he was looking directly at me when he asked. I felt so singled out. I said, “That’s all well and good, but how do you forgive the people who were meant to love you unconditionally, yet they hurt you so deeply that the wounds will never heal?” He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “You need to forgive for yourself.” I’m not going to lie; I did not understand what he meant by that at that point in time. I left the school hall fuming because “How dare he single me out like that!” Seriously? I am shaking my head at myself now that I write it out. How ridiculous, Tarz! You’re such a drama queen!

“You need to forgive for yourself,” stuck in my head for months! Months! Every time it popped up, I was like, “That’s so stupid! How can I forgive these people for what they’ve done? Look what they did to me! They don’t even care! How do I forgive them? Why should I forgive them?” The more the thought came, the more I questioned it. The more I questioned, the more I realised how true it was. I will never get an apology from those who have hurt me because they don’t see themselves as being in the wrong. They are abusers, narcissists, and just immoral people in general. Those kinds of people do not apologise for their ways. It was my wake-up call. If I wanted to get myself out of the rut, I needed to let go and forgive – it was my only way of closure from decades of hurt. If I didn’t let go and forgive, I would never know what it was like to truly live. The real kick up the bum, though, was that I was not only holding myself back, but I was also putting my daughter into the same situation. I was avoiding going out, which meant that she was also stuck inside. I had stopped cooking, so we were eating junk all the time. It needed to end. Only I could end it. So, here we are! Ending it, so I can start again.

Much love,

Tarz